‘Debating’ the Merits of Clickers in an Academic Library

Abstract

Technological innovations offer an opportunity for librarians to investigate and evaluate the most promising educational tools that will support and “enhance teaching methods and meet the demand for student-centered, active learning classroom strategies.”¹ Librarians are constantly searching for new pedagogical approaches to incorporate into their classroom presentations. With the push to make library instruction more interactive and to include active learning activities that motivate the student audience, librarians are developing creative programs to teach information literacy skills.² As part of this process, librarians are also identifying new tech devices such as audience response systems which may have pedagogic potential for learning and teaching. Audience response systems, or clickers, are gaining popularity on many college campuses as a tool to gauge students’ understanding of the material being presented during a lecture-type session. In an article describing new high-tech products, Gary Roberts predicted that screencasting software and classroom response systems “will eventually become essential tools for dynamic educators.”³